Racing men would have been proud of him. The Minister for Finance managed to place on the Dail record an allegation that an editorial in this newspaper contained "a number of seriously inaccurate and misconceived statements relating to the Central Bank" while, at the same time, refusing to say whether he himself agreed with it.
The allegation was made by Mr Maurice O'Connell in a letter to the Minister last February. In it, the governor of the Central Bank sought to justify the contents of an earlier letter he had sent to Mr McCreevy, in 1997, in which he claimed that the Central Bank only learned of the Ansbacher accounts through the McCracken tribunal.
We now know from evidence given to the Moriarty tribunal by officials from the Central Bank that from 1976 to 1978 it was expressing concern to Guinness & Mahon about its offshore banking activities which it regarded as "contrary to the national interest". Following assurances by Mr Des Traynor that the level of bank loans would be reduced, the Bank appeared to have lost interest.
The complained-of editorial in The Irish Times recorded that officials from the Central Bank were due to go before the Moriarty tribunal to explain its role - or lack of it - in regulating the banking sector, monitoring offshore accounts and operating exchange control laws.
And it commented: "Its palpable failure to confront and deal with tax fraud, exchange-control irregularities and possible money-laundering involving a subsidiary of Guinness & Mahon (Ireland) Ltd in the Cayman Islands in the 1980s requires explanation.
"The tribunal may also explore why the Central Bank apparently failed to advise the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, in 1997 - and through him the Dail - that it had knowledge of banking practices involving Guinness & Mahon Cayman Trust Ltd in 1978 which it regarded as `contrary to the national interest'.
"On the basis of its record, in relation to this matter and the DIRT scandal, the Central Bank should not retain the function as regulator of the financial services sector," the editorial said.
In his letter of justification to the Minister, Mr O'Connell recalled that the McCracken report covered the period from 1986 to 1996 and, as a result, his comments on supervisory issues raised by the Minister had referred to that period.
They had not dealt with "onsite inspections of Guinness & Mahon carried out by the Bank in the 1970s". The fact remained, he said, that the Central Bank had "no knowledge of the system of numbered offshore deposit accounts known as the `Ansbacher deposits'."
Mr Derek McDowell was gobsmacked. The Labour Party spokesman said the letter did not address the new information that had come to light at the tribunal. And he challenged the Minister to say whether the House had been misled.
Mr McCreevy was having none of it. He had not misled the House. He had just read two separate letters into the record. As to whether the letters reflected a true position, he had taken legal advice from the Attorney General and had been advised to say nothing.
The nub of the matter, the Minister said, was that the Central Bank insisted the system of numbered accounts known as the "Ansbacher deposits" had been deliberately concealed. They were not part of the G & M accounting system and were not known to the bank until McCracken reported.
On the other hand, the back-to-back loans of 1976 and 1978 were part of the G & M accounting system. And, Mr McCreevy concluded, "from the governor's letter of February 9th, it would appear that the terms `Ansbacher accounts' and `Ansbacher deposits', as is used in the governor's letter dated November 11th, were not intended to cover these accounts. My advice is that it would not be appropriate to enter into any discussion on this distinction as this is a matter for the tribunal."
The McCracken tribunal did not make such a fine distinction in its report on Ansbacher Cayman Ltd. It found: "From the mid-1970s, Ansbacher Cayman Ltd placed substantial deposits with G & M which by 1989 had grown to approximately £38 million . . ."
Still. It was a nice one for the Minister. He managed to suggest an inaccuracy by this newspaper without exposing himself to fire.